


The Perks of Having Betas to Tell You Your Alpha's Feelings

by orphan_account



Series: The Hatchback Epic [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, Kanima Hunting, Magic, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Occult, Pack Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-22 17:15:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4843712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Also known as: how to avoid vague questions from your alpha and his minions with even more vague answers, exclusively featuring the peanut gallery and special guest star: the Kanima!</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Perks of Having Betas to Tell You Your Alpha's Feelings

Stiles looked up from Bellatrix’s work, his eyes pinched and a headache growing. She was drawing out the exact parameters for the Kanima’s location spell, after bullying Derek into telling her everything he knew about Kanima.

They had been right and wrong in their initial assumptions. The Kanima was not a werewolf, nor was it the relative of werewolves that took the shape of a jaguar and lived in South America. To Stiles’ unending disappointment, it was also not in any way taking control of the United States Government. Kanima, Derek had explained, were imperfect werewolves. They had received the Bite from an Alpha, but rejected it. The rejection had something to do with events in the person’s past that blocked said person from fully accepting the bite. Instead of transforming them into a werewolf, it turned them into some bizarre Thulsa Doom bullshit.

Stiles didn’t sleep much the night before. Nothing really made sense anymore.

His eyes immediately fell on Derek.  The Alpha looked pissed as all shit, but he was watching Bellatrix with an intense curiosity in his eyes. If Stiles wasn’t so acutely aware that Derek could kill him with his thumb, he might have thought it cute. Stiles couldn’t blame him, though. Bellatrix was damn good at what she did. It was almost hypnotic to watch her work.

“Stilinski, stop fucking thinking,” she grumbled, “and go get me some more goddamn coffee. This is all your fucking fault.”

He made a noise that he hoped sounded like affirmation before standing and wandering to the front of the coffee shop they had set up in. They had only been there for a couple hours after getting mercilessly thrown from the library. Bellatrix had already downed three pumpkin spice lattes, a double shot of espresso, and one cup of Americano. Stiles wanted to salute her, but he also wanted to take her to the hospital.

Another latte in his hand, he returned to the table they had taken over. Derek was still watching the young woman, but he looked up when Stiles returned. The same sort of headache seemed to be building up behind his eyes.

“When is it gonna be done?” Stiles asked, looking back to Bellatrix.

She broke off her work to stretch, and gratefully accepted the coffee. “Soon. Just need to add a ley line at the proper angle for each mount, and, voila, location spell.” The rest of the coffee went down the hatch and she resumed working.

Derek spoke, soft enough that only Stiles could hear. “Where did you find her?” His voice was equal parts amused and absolutely perplexed.

Stiles took a second to consider the benefits of telling him, and weighed them against the benefits of not telling him. Both of them ended with him pressed up against a wall, and not in the good way. “She’s my teacher,” he finally said.

“Teacher?”

“Yeah, to be qualified as a liaison for a werewolf pack I have to take some courses through the Occult Society. Bellatrix teaches a course called Magic, Magical Concepts, and the World Around You. It’s a year-long seminar,” the nerves in his stomach were thrumming up his throat as he cautiously peeked at the Alpha.

Derek had a thoughtful look on his face, but sadly it mostly made him look constipated. There was _definitely_ some anger there. He seemed to be struggling.

“Derek?” Stiles finally asked, getting concerned for the man’s wellbeing.

“I just,” the sigh he let out was full of frustration, “I never had the chance to learn about this. Any of this. I knew that the pack was registered, but my parents were the ones who dealt with the day-to-day affairs of running it.”

“So you—uh, I mean,” Stiles looked back at Bellatrix and chewed his lip, “Were you _supposed_ to be Alpha?”

Derek’s voice was dangerously low again when he replied, “What makes you say that.”

“No offense, but you are, like, the worst-prepared person ever,” Bellatrix interrupted. “For fuck’s sake, the Alpha of the pack up in northern Washington is better equipped than you are, and she’s at least four years younger than you.” She tossed her pen back into the bag and pushed away from the table. “In more joyous news, I’m finally fuckin’ done!”

Stiles and Derek, forgetting his animosity toward both of them, leaned forward to inspect it. Inside of a circle there were a bunch of intersecting lines, dots, and two triangles, one at the top, and one at the bottom. Bellatrix pointed to them, “Water, for the current state affected by the past, and fire, for the constant of the Bite.”

“How did you plot this?” Stiles asked, running his eyes of the precise lines greedily.

“I literally pulled it all out of my ass. Now, I am going to go pass out in my car,” she stood, wobbling slightly, and pushed the paper to Stiles. “It’ll work no matter who uses it. I’ll count this as…fuck, I dunno, extra credit.” They watched her hobble out of the café to her car, and disappear into the hatchback.

“You can use it?” Derek’s brows were furrowed again as he looked from the paper to Stiles. “But you—”

“Right,” Stiles interrupted, loudly, “where’s the pack? They might be useful for this.”

“Stiles,” the Alpha had _that_ tone to his voice, the tone that his dad used when Stiles was being particularly insufferable about Lydia.

“Derek, do you really not understand? The liaison between a pack and the Society needs to be a trained witch,” Stiles felt like dragging his hands down his face. At least what Derek lacked in the “smarts” category he made up for in the “looks” category. “I am a witch-in-training. A t’witch, if you will. Can we please do this sometime today so I can go home and sleep?”

The silence resumed as they left the café and awkwardly remained for several moments, at least until Derek finally broke it. He said, “So, you don’t have your car.”

Stiles buried his head in his hands and wished with all of his might that this day was just a fucking dream.

They ended up bumming a ride from Bellatrix, who agreed on the sole condition that they let her sleep for at least an hour and a half before waking her again. She drove them to warehouse, parked inside, crawled into the hatchback, and passed out.

Erica and Boyd were sitting in the first subway car, seeing how hard they could chuck rocks at each other without denting the inside of the car. They both froze when Stiles and Derek appeared in the doorway, obviously curious.

“Isaac?” Derek asked.

Before either could reply, the boy appeared in the window. He looked somewhat warily from Stiles to his Alpha, and asked, “What’s happening? Who’s in the car?”

“We know how to find the Kanima,” Stiles said, feeling triumphant through his exhaustion. “And that is, my, professor. Person. Teacher. It doesn’t really matter.”

“It does,” Derek ground out, “but it can wait. How exactly does this work?” He gestured to the paper Stiles was still holding.

“Oh! Yeah, do you have any candles?” all four of them looked blankly at him. Of course they didn’t have any goddamn candles, he realized. Werewolves can see in the dark. If it wouldn’t have broken his hand, Stiles would’ve punched Derek in the mouth for the smirk the man was giving him.

“Fuck you,” he said to the room in general, leaving to pilfer Bellatrix’s car. She did have candles, two of them, which was all a location spell called for. To be safe, he set it up in the middle of the warehouse. First the paper went on the floor, then a candle each at the top and at the bottom, carved with the corresponding elemental symbols. Finally, a map of Beacon Hills and the surrounding area to be placed directly below the spell itself.

“Is this…magic?” Erica's voice was curious as she watched him unfold the map and prepare the spell. Derek was talking to Boyd and Isaac inside the subway car. Stiles nodded.

“I’ve been taking a magic course since May,” he replied, tacking the map down with pieces of gravel. “It’s sort of, uh, complicated.”

“I feel that,” she said, looking down at the spread. “This is cool, though.”

“Now, the real question: does anyone have matches or a lighter,” Stiles muttered to himself. Erica, of course, heard him with her super werewolfy hearing, and laughed slightly.

“Yeah, I think Boyd still has a lighter.”

He did, which Stiles was very thankful for. And none of them judged him for needing to read the spell off a piece of paper, which he was also very thankful for. After he finished reading the spell then lighting the candles, Stiles sat back and watched the map.

“Is something supposed to be happening?” Boyd sounded distinctly unimpressed.

“Cool it, terminator,” Stiles replied, frowning. “It usually takes a minute or two with a standard matrix, but since we had to hand-make the matrix it might take longer. But,” he glanced at his watch, “be ready to split. The spell stays applied for a while, but it is easier to track right away.”

As if on cue, a small dark spot materialized on the map. It was in the middle of a neighborhood that Stiles was not familiar with, but Isaac seemed to be. The other boy gulped in a harsh intake of air when he saw the map. “That’s Jackson’s house,” he said, a mix of quiet and nervous.

“Jackson?” Stiles puzzled. “Huh. Whatever, go find our nice lizard friend. Call me when you get there.”

Derek nodded, turned to his Betas, “Erica, Boyd. Isaac, you’re here.” They all nodded. Derek disappeared with the first two, running quick and silent into the afternoon sun. After a moment, Isaac awkwardly sat down next to Stiles.

“This is some protection thing, isn’t it,” Stiles asked the other boy, faintly amused.

Isaac relaxed, and the small smile on his face seemed genuine. “Well, Derek said that you’re part of the pack now. And, well, we can feel it, too.”

“Feel what?”

“Pack dynamics change daily. Sometimes sooner, with Erica,” Isaac fidgeted with his shoelace, glancing back at the map every so often. “And we’re all connected, somehow. I could feel when Erica became Pack, and Boyd. And Scott,” he frowned slightly. “Scott’s been drifting away. But a few hours ago I felt someone else become Pack. I-I guess that was you.”

“Haven’t I been part of the pack for a while now, though?” Stiles asked.

“Well, yeah, but,” Isaac seemed frustrated that he couldn’t articulate as well as he wanted to. “You were more, distant, I guess. And now you’re not.”

“Huh,” Stiles looked back at the map. His phone buzzed in his hand, and he absent-mindedly answered it. “Stilinski.”

“Stiles,” Derek was quiet but still managed to sound dangerous as _fuck_. “Whittemore is the only one in the house.”

“Well, the marking hasn’t moved,” Stiles shifted so his legs wouldn’t fall asleep. “It’s definitely him.”

“We’re going to—” Whatever Derek was going to say was cut off by a loud scuffling sound, a bang followed by a loud growl, and then the line went silent. Almost immediately, Stiles’s phone rang again.

Stiles started talking as soon as he answered, “Derek, what’s happening?”

“Uh, Stiles?” His best friend’s voice sounded tinny. “It’s Scott.”

Stiles shared an embarrassed look with Isaac, who looked ready to run to wherever Derek and the rest of the pack was. He replied, “Sorry. What’s up?”

“Is it okay if I come over?”

“Well, I’m not exactly at home right now,” Stiles replied, distracted. He stared back at the map. The spell was beginning to wear off, the mark losing its color shade by shade. “I’m at the Lair.”

“O-okay, I’ll be over soon,” before Stiles could reply, Scott had hung up.

Stiles redialed the number Derek called from, but only got the answering machine. It was Erica’s phone, judging from the answering machine. Isaac looked at him, eyes spiking gold, looking anxious.

“What could’ve happened?”

“I don’t—shit,” Stiles glanced back at the map. The Kanima’s spot was still disappearing, but it was moving. Moving toward the warehouse.

**Author's Note:**

> i need some fucking sleep  
> who knows how long this s gnna be  
> (annoy me on tumblr@placidislandofignorance!!)


End file.
